has
given us indirectly, and as a poet gives, a philosophy of life; he has
interpreted the world anew in the light of a dominant idea; and it will
be no little gain if we can make clear to ourselves those constitutive
principles on which his view of the world rests.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE NEED OF A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.

"Art,--which I may style the love of loving, rage
Of knowing, seeing, feeling the absolute truth of things
For truth's sake, whole and sole, not any good, truth brings
The knower, seer, feeler, beside,--instinctive Art
Must fumble for the whole, once fixing on a part
However poor, surpass the fragment, and aspire
To reconstruct thereby the ultimate entire."[A]

[Footnote A: _Fifine at the Fair_, xliv.]

No English poet has spoken more impressively than Browning on the
weightier matters of morality and religion, or sought with more
earnestness to meet the difficulties which arise when we try to
penetrate to their ultimate principles. His way of poetry is, I think,
fundamentally different from that of any other of our great writers. He
often seems to be roused into speech, rather by the intensity of his
spiritual convictions than by the subtle incitements of poetic
sensibility. His convictions caught fire, and truth became beauty for
him; not beauty, truth, as with Keats or Shelley. He is swayed by ideas,
rather than by sublime moods. Beneath the endless variety of his poems,
there are permanent principles, or "colligating conceptions," as science
calls them; and although these are expressed by the way of emotion, they
are held by him with all the resources of his reason.

His work, though intuitive and perceptive as to form, "gaining God by
first leap" as all true art must do, leaves the impression, when
regarded as a whole, of an articulated system. It is a view of man's
life and destiny that can be maintained, not only during the impassioned
moods of poetry, but in the very presence of criticism and doubt. His
faith, like Pompilia's, is held fast "despite the plucking fiend." He
has given to us something more than intuitive glimpses into, the
mysteries of man's character. Throughout his life he held up the steady
light of an optimistic conception of the world, and by its means
injected new vigour into English ethical thought. In his case,
therefore, it is not an immaterial question, but one almost forced upon
us, whether we are to take his ethical doctrine and inspiring optimism